L'Impero della Luce is an experimental and electronic music duo founded in 2018.
The project focuses on new forms of soundscape through the listening, recording, and manipulation of the secret sounds of electricity, radio waves, and electromagnetic fields. It offers educational and exploratory paths into the inaudible sounds of cities, creating musical environments by amplifying and organizing in real time the electrical sounds that human ears cannot perceive.
Since 2020, LIDL has been steadily collaborating with SOMA Laboratory to promote the listening of electromagnetic soundscapes through “Foreste Elettriche” (Electric Forests), itinerant soundwalks that utilize SOMA Ether devices to explore the ecosystem of invisible urban sounds.
Already featured in the 2020-21 edition of the European network Keychange, the duo has received support from major cultural institutions, such as Usmaradio (within the KIN, Radioresidenze, and Tactus Festival projects) and Fondazione Bonotto.
Following the album “Il Mare di Dirac” (2020), the duo created the ATLAS collection, a radio production broadcast between late 2024 and early 2025 by national and international stations, and selected by festivals such as Monteaudio – Festival internacional de arte sonoro, Instituto de música de la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de la República, Uruguay – and “Audiomanzia” – curated by the Centro d’Arte and the University of Padua in collaboration with SaMPL at the Pollini Conservatory.
In its live practices, LIDL favors unusual venues – such as steam trains, monumental cemeteries, museums… – serial and aleatoric experiments – such as the cycle of the four TALUS staged between 2023 and 2024 – or long-duration concerts like Sleep Concerts, which engage the duo in uninterrupted 7- to 8-hour performances dedicated to a sleeping or half-asleep audience.
Ph: Aaron Giordani
2018
Year of foundation
LIDL debuts with a concert aboard the steam train celebrating the 30th anniversary of John Cage's Train, a piece staged by the American composer in 1978 on the Bologna-Porretta Terme line.
2019
Electromagnetic soundscapes
The duo begins recording urban and industrial electromagnetic sounds. The partnership with Fondazione Bonotto leads to the creation of the piece "Calcite, Onyx, Hawaii, Tobacco (380 V)", realized using the acoustic and electromagnetic sounds of the Bonotto textile factory and of several artworks held by the Foundation – such as the monitors from Nam June Paik's Robot: the Baseball Player (1989), the small motor from Joe Jones's Mechanical Surmandal (1978), or the screens broadcasting Philip Corner's performance at the Lanificio (1995).
Il Mare di Dirac
Dedicated to the women and men who made twentieth-century physics great, the album “Il Mare di Dirac” (The Dirac Sea) collects musical compositions created by organizing electrical sounds produced by everyday objects alongside samplings of electrical and electromagnetic sounds gathered from urban and industrial spaces, as well as locations tied to the worlds of art, culture, and daily life. The album was mastered in 2019 by Giulio Favero (One Dimensional Man, Il Teatro degli Orrori) and released in February 2020; due to the pandemic, the official presentation was postponed to the 2021 edition of Tallinn Music Week (Tallinn, Estonia).
2020
Keychange
LIDL is included in the European project Keychange alongside 79 other musicians and innovators from the international music scene. Dedicated to gender equality, the program supports the development and growth of the duo, offering connections with industry professionals, seminars, and workshops in Milan, Stockholm, and Tallinn.
Usmaradio and
Santarcangelo Festival 2050
The collaboration between LIDL and the University of San Marino's radio station begins with KIN – a Usmaradio project organized within the framework of Santarcangelo Festival 2050. LIDL is invited to a three-day residency in Santarcangelo, during which the duo records the electromagnetic sounds of the town and performs a musical set broadcast live on air from the Nello Spazio stage.
→ Nello Spazio, full concert
SOMA & Electric Forests
Thanks to the collaboration with SOMA Laboratory, the first “Foreste Elettriche” (Electric Forests) come to life: listening sessions that invite audiences to discover the electromagnetic landscapes of various cities, offering a new concept of soundscape. From 2020 to 2025, LIDL's Foreste Elettriche have involved over 700 people and reached 27 Italian and international cities, spanning from Sicily to Trentino, and from Sweden to San Marino.
→ Electric Forests, Electromagnetic Soundscapes
Sleep Concert
In the summer of 2020, the duo begins presenting its first Sleep Concerts: uninterrupted 7- to 8-hour performances dedicated to a sleeping or half-asleep audience. Unlike many similar events where multiple musicians take turns throughout the night, LIDL sustains the performance continuously, adhering to the original format coined by Robert Rich. LIDL has brought its Sleep Concerts to Trieste (Science+Fiction Festival, 28–29 October 2023), Mantua (Segni New Generations Festival, 05–06 November 2022), Valdagno (Parco della Favorita, 15–16 August 2020), and Setteville (Il cielo in una stanza, 01–02 July 2020).
2021
Tallinn Music Week
Thanks to Keychange, LIDL is invited to take part in Tallinn Music Week alongside artists such as A Place to Bury Strangers. Following a visit to the Estonian Parliament and a conversation with Heidy Purga, DJ and Minister of Culture of Estonia, LIDL presents its debut album – Il Mare di Dirac – at the Winkel Kulturklub.
→ Tallinn Music Week
2022
Unusual Venues
As the health state of emergency draws to a close, 2022 finds LIDL touring Italy, booked for several sessions of Foreste Elettriche and Sleep Concerts. Among the most iconic and significant performances of this year are the concert at the Monumental Cemetery of the Certosa di Bologna and the final, historic edition of Stazione di Topolò – Postaja Topolove, one of Italy's most fascinating and radical cultural projects, founded in 1994 by Moreno Miorelli and Antonella Bukovaz.
2023
Talus
During a radio residency at Giardini Pensili / Usmaradio (Rimini), LIDL lays the foundation for a new project: TALUS, a series of musical actions taking its cue from a statement by Pierre Schaeffer. Like a roll of the dice, TALUS is an act of trust performed by the players: to generate sound, LIDL relies exclusively on electrical objects found on-site or brought by the audience members invited to the performances. The 6 Talus iterations involved: the electrical and electronic objects from the Giardini Pensili studios (Talus#1, February 2, 2023); devices brought to the venue by regular attendees of the Teatro Coppola in Catania (Talus#2, March 24, 2023); the sounds of the equipment present inside the Monastery of Santa Chiara during Tactus Festival (Talus#3, San Marino, December 2, 2023); the display cases of the exhibition “Alabarde Spaziali. 50 anni di Fantascienza a Trieste” (Talus#4, San Giusto Castle, Trieste, January 13, 2024); Fumi della Fornace Poetry Festival (Talus#5, Macerata, August 2024); Musica in Prossimità Festival (Talus#6, Pinerolo, Torino, December 2024).
→ Story of a Radio Residency
Bunker 5 Brigata Lucca & Audiomanzia
Realized with a SOMA Ether device, the track “Bunker 5 Brigata Lucca” stems from field recordings conducted along the banks of the Piave River, site of the Battle of the Solstice in June 1918. The piece was selected from over 250 sound works and presented during the opening day of Audiomanzia, a project curated by the Centro d’Arte di Padova and the University of Padua in collaboration with SaMPL – Sound and Music Processing Lab at the Pollini Conservatory of Padua. “Bunker 5 Brigata Lucca” will be included in the radio work ATLAS (2025).
→ Ghosts Speaking in Radio Waves
Bonotto 10
In July, LIDL is invited to deliver a musical performance for the guests celebrating the tenth anniversary of Fondazione Bonotto, held within the spaces of The Venice Venice Hotel, an experiential venue and contemporary art showcase overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. The event featured a special rendition of the piece “Calcite, Onyx, Hawaii, Tobacco” (2019), Julien Blaine's performances “Je parle? La machine tipographique” and “8 debout & 8 couch”, and the intervention “Jazz poetry and so!” by Giovanni Fontana and Umberto Petrin.
2024
Electric Forests in Pesaro, Italian Capital of Culture, and Sound Diaries
The Foreste Elettriche are selected to become part of the educational projects offered during the year of Pesaro Italian Capital of Culture, within the framework of Piano Pianissimo Forte Fortissimo, a project curated by Cooperativa Sociale Labirinto, Oceano Adriatico. For five months, once a month, LIDL guides six different groups of five people each to discover the electromagnetic sounds of various locations throughout the city. The experience leads to the development, production, and printing of the “Diari Sonori” (Sound Diaries), specialized journals featuring exercises for listening to the soundscape, designed as a tool to promote soundscape listening and to care for and respect the phonosphere as a collective asset.
ATLAS, Radio Work
On October 17, ATLAS is broadcast for the first time by Usmaradio: a collection of tracks conceived to be distributed exclusively via radio streaming. This choice reflects a labyrinth of thoughts involving questions such as: what is the meaning of the record market today? What are the modalities of usage and consumption for our music? Can radio – in the new century – be the primary vehicle for the dissemination of a certain type of sonic language? Or can it become so once again, ensuring the survival of experimental languages? Between October 2024 and January 2025, ATLAS is broadcast by national and international stations, including Fango Radio (Italy), Usmaradio (San Marino), Radio Raheem (Italy), Sin Web Radio (Greece), Jet FM (France), L'Autre Radio (France), Resonance FM (UK), and Radio Kapital (Poland). The 30-minute work comprises the tracks: Come in un film. Oggetti nel firmamento, realized in 2024 at San Giusto Castle by recording the sounds of the exhibition “Alabarde Spaziali. 60 anni di fantascienza a Trieste” curated by Trieste Science + Fiction Festival; Calcite, Hawaii, Onyx, Tabacco, realized in 2018 at the Bonotto textile factory and Foundation, Molvena (Vicenza); Insula, realized at Giardini Pensili Usmaradio, Rimini (2024); Stockholm Syndrome, recorded in the city of Stockholm (2020); Bunker 5 Brigata Lucca, composed in 2023, recorded in Bunker No. 5 in Ciano del Montello (Treviso); Requiem, recorded inside Osteria Tocchetto ✝︎, Montebelluna (Treviso, 2020); Baltic Sea, recorded in the urban spaces of Tallinn (2021).
→ How Do We Listen to Music?
Electric Forests at Musica in Prossimità and Lucia Festival
At the close of the year, the Foreste Elettriche are hosted in Piedmont, in Pinerolo, as guests of the Musica in Prossimità festival, where they involved numerous children and new citizens, and in Florence, as part of the Lucia Festival.
2025
Monteaudio International Sound Art Festival
ATLAS is among the selected works included in the Monteaudio International Sound Art Festival of the University of Uruguay, and is broadcast by Radio Monteaudio, the festival's radio platform, on January 13.
Fondazione Bonotto
During the summer, new recording sessions begin within the facilities of the Bonotto textile company to develop a new sound work.
Experimental Sound Education: Arcipelago di Suono
In October, LIDL spends several days in Rimini as a guest of the event “Arcipelago di Suono”, curated by NicoNote and Rimini Blue Lab. During the days spent at the Darsena di San Giuliano, the duo meets over two hundred middle and high school students – from artistic, classical, and scientific institutes – who, through an educational project, begin to familiarize themselves with the concepts of natural and magnetic soundscapes, discovering new sounds, worlds, and ways of listening.
Rebirth-day of Michelangelo Pistoletto's Terzo Paradiso
At the close of the year, LIDL is invited by Sexto ‘Nplugged to celebrate the Rebirth-day of Michelangelo Pistoletto's Terzo Paradiso at the Mercati Culturali in Pordenone, featuring a special listening action focused on the sound of radio waves passing through the plants that comprise the iconic installation.
ars sine scientia nihil est
